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Lindsey Graham's vote on Elena Kagan ensures primary challenge

Update, 10:37 p.m. (7/21): Richard Quinn, a consultant to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R), emails the Fix to clarify that his remark that the Senator will do well "among voters with IQ's in the triple digits" was meant in jest. Duly noted.

Original Post

South Carolina Sen.Lindsey Graham's (R) announcement that he will vote in favor of Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court is likely to further incite conservatives already unhappy with him and, according to close observers of the state's politics, ensures he will face a serious primary challenge in 2014.

"I think there's a good reason for a conservative to vote yes," Graham said this morning.

Graham's apostasy on Kagan comes after other high profile breaks with conservatives in his state (and nationally) over climate change and immigration reform and will likely make him a central target of those tea party Republicans who helped oust Utah Sen. Bob Bennett in his bid for renomination earlier this year.

"It's no longer a question of 'if' but 'who' and 'how many'," said one South Carolina Republican operative about a Graham primary challenge. The source added that Graham's approach on high profile issues of late is "putting Lindsey's friends and supporters in a really tough place."

Richard Quinn, a Graham consultant, defended his client -- noting that the Senator is "not a demagogue". Added Quinn: "He's a thinking person's conservative. I expect him to do well among voters with IQ's in triple digits."

Quinn also noted that it's more than four years before Graham faces voters again; "There will be many battles fought, lost and won between now and then," he said.

And, Graham has proven himself to be a very able politician -- running what was widely regarded as the best campaign of the 2002 election cycle and easily beating back a primary challenge in 2008 when there was already some conservative unrest directed toward him. He ended June with $2.8 million in the bank.

All that being said, there is public chatter in Republican circles about who might take on Graham. Here's a look at the top names -- culled from conversations with GOP strategists in the state:

* Katon Dawson: The former chairman of the state Republican party would have the financial network and connections in the state to make a serious run at Graham. And, he may be looking for a next act after losing out on the Republican National Committee chairmanship in 2009.

* Jeff Duncan: Duncan, a state representative, is the odds-on favorite to replace Rep. Gresham Barrett in the 3rd district this fall. (Graham held that same Upstate seat before being elected to the Senate in 2002.) That would provide a real geographic base from which to run in four years time.

* Mark Sanford: Yes, that Mark Sanford. The soon-to-be-former governor has made clear to political insiders that he is interested in a return to politics and targeting Graham in 2014 might give Sanford enough time to rehab his badly damaged image.

* Trey Gowdy: Gowdy is a heavy favorite to come to Congress this fall after he crushed Rep. Bob Inglis (R) in a primary in the strongly Republican 4th district. He gets rave reviews from smart political people in the state but it remains unclear whether the Senate is an office he covets.

* Mick Mulvaney: Mulvaney, a state senator, is currently running against Rep. John Spratt (D) in the 5th district. Win -- or even lose -- and he's likely to be in the Graham primary mix.

* Tom Davis: Davis is a state Senator from Beaufort (in the Lowcountry). He's also a close ally of GOP gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley. If Haley is elected governor this fall, her allies will be in the catbird's seat for offices down the line.

If you put Kagan in the Supreme Court, you may as well elect Fiedel Castro as president! He couldn't do any worse than Fascist, Barry Soetoro aka; Barak Obama

The reasons why we must vote out, Establishment Government Representatives, whether they are Left or Right - Incumbent or Candidate!

Make sure they do not belong to any of the Global Elitist Organizations: Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, Club of Rome, Skull and Bones, Canadian Council of Chief Executives,
Harvard Elite Players, Goldman Sachs, International Monetary Fund, The United Nations, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization.

The reason we must vote out Establishment Government Representatives whether they are Left or Right, Incumbent or Candidate is explained on this 2 minute News Clip:

You say: " Lindsey Graham's vote on Elena Kagan ensures primary challenge
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R) announcement that he will vote in favor of Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court is likely to further incite conservatives already unhappy with him and, according to close observers of the state's politics, ensures he will face a serious primary challenge in 2014. "

Oh, please. The guy is obviously going to pull a Spector. He almost lost last time even when the bailouts came AFTER the primaries, to a guy no one ever heard of before, who was a Ron Paul supporter who changed parties and won the Dem primary at the last minute, and got over 40% of the vote with about $42,000 in donations.

You say: " Lindsey Graham's vote on Elena Kagan ensures primary challenge
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R) announcement that he will vote in favor of Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court is likely to further incite conservatives already unhappy with him and, according to close observers of the state's politics, ensures he will face a serious primary challenge in 2014. "

Oh, please. The guy is obviously going to pull a Spector. He almost lost last time even when the bailouts came AFTER the primaries, to a guy no one ever heard of before, who was a Ron Paul supporter who changed parties and won the Dem primary at the last minute, and got over 40% of the vote with about $42,000 in donations.

This pretty much says it all as to why Graham might loose in the next GOP primary:

"Richard Quinn, a Graham consultant, defended his client -- noting that the Senator is "not a demagogue". Added Quinn: "He's a thinking person's conservative. I expect him to do well among voters with IQ's in triple digits."

It's a shame there aren't more senators (of either party) willing to take this sort of principled stand, despite what it might do to his future prospects for reelection. I've generally voted for Democrats (with the exceptions of Rep. Tom Davis and Sen. John Warner), but despite disagreeing with probably most of his political beliefs, if I lived in SC, I'd happily vote for Sen. Graham over a Democrat just because I think we need his kind of moderate and fair representation in politics and men like him unfortunately seem few and far between.

Bob has continued his nutcase tirade against the useage of oil, ludicrously comparing oil useage to drug addiction. He believes in the myth of man made global warming,

==

I stopped there. Sad to know that this sort of trolling will still get through the filters.

But trolling it is. You go on to ridicule science and the idea of doing anything to avert the disaster ahead, as though denying it will make it go away. With humans restoring billions of tons of sequestered carbon to the atmosphere, a gas with an absorption spectrum smack dab in the middle of the infrared corresponding to the temperatures of the earth's surface, denying anthropogenic global warming is as much a folly as denying a round earth and a heliocentric planetary system.

Why?

Is it worth cooking the planet just to get in a cheap goad at liberals?

I lived a year in Charleston. A family probably like you moved in next door ... mushmouth hillbillies whose speech was barely recognizable as such, they sounded like they were gargling. Fine, go ahead and mock science and mock the environment and go on funding Al Qaida at the pump but don't brag about dogs thet dunt hunt 'cause you have nothing to be proud of.

Richard Quinn, a Graham consultant, defended his client -- noting that the Senator is "not a demagogue". Added Quinn: "He's a thinking person's conservative. I expect him to do well among voters with IQ's in triple digits."

Unfortunately, not too many of those among primary voters. Time to get rid of the primary process which makes every candidate have to curry favor with wingnuts.

I live in the 4th CD of South Carolina. Congressman Bob Inglis is a very nice likeable fellow. He is also way out in left field and totally out of touch with his constituients here. It is almost like he was intentionally taking stupid and controversial positions just to irritate the rank and file of the GOP here.

Two years ago he had an underfunded GOP primary challenger with no name ID and very little money. This "token" opponent polled a surprising 30% of the vote.

In the general election the Democrats ran a retired businessman who is a nice likeable fellow. He is also a decorated veteran of combat in Vietnam where he was a Navy Corpsman attached to Marines in combat. Again, with no name ID and no money, this Democrat got a surprising 40% of the vote in the general election.

These were clear signals that Congressman Bob Inglis is seriously way out in left field and radically misrepresents the majority of voters in this district.

Bob has continued his nutcase tirade against the useage of oil, ludicrously comparing oil useage to drug addiction. He believes in the myth of man made global warming, supports cap & tax, and wants cars to run on hydrogen. That sort of moonbat tomfoolery might be popular in Nancy Pelosi's district but as we say here in South Carolina, that dog don't hunt.

Bob Inglis drew not one, but four, primary opponents. He ran a poor second place in the five way primary and should have had the good sense to bow out. In the runoff, Trey Gowdy trounced Bob 70% to Bob's 30%!

Bob Inglis is a lame duck who will not be returning to Congress in January.

Lindsey Graham is following Bob Inglis' extremely poor example. Lindsey never passes up an opportunity to poke the rank and file of the GOP with a sharp stick. He supports the same nutcase policies Bob Inglis has supported with disastrous results. Graham too had a relatively unknown and underfunded opponent last time who got a strong 30% in the GOP primary.

In 2014 Senator Lindsey Graham will draw well known and well funded opponents. If Gov. Mark Sanford runs, he is a shoo in for the office. Even some of the less known, or less desirable names floated in the article above can expect to get votes that are basically cast for "Anybody but Lindsey." In any event, Senator Lindsey Graham is definitely seriously to the far left of the people of South Carolina and he is definitely on his way out.

It's a waste of time trying to talk to your, Brigade; you ignore arguments and the rare times you don't just respond with insults you simply allude to experts. And at your best you neener-neener about current interpretations.

Why should assassins be the ones to motivate a change in interpretation? An assassin can kill a public figure with a single gun. More germane are the tens of thousands of murder committed every year with guns.

You really don't seem engaged in the debate at all, just in gotcha-garbage.

Luridone, actually you are wrong and the clear history of the 9th Amendment makes known you are wrong - but I never expect anyone to really know this history - so I am not trying to be difficult.

the debate over the 9th was about its necessity - all sides agreed that since the constitution clearly defined the limited powers of the government then there was no need for the Bill of Rights - nothing in the constitution took away our inalienable rights.

Madison reasoned that people like 37th would come along and make stupid pronouncements like "where in the constitution does it say you have a right to privacy?" That is not the question - the question is "where in the constitution does it empower the government to regulate our bodies, bedrooms etc.?"

Madison as history teaches us was right - the right has subverted the constitution by claiming teh government can regulate everything unless teh constitution says otherwise - wrong
The government has limited powers which do not include banning self defense or with whom I choose to bed down with or marry.

Bobby Wc

Posted by: bobbywc | July 20, 2010 4:19 PM
__________________________________
Bobby Wc, respectfully, I disagree. FWIW, I took courses on Constitutional Law in Law School, and have read not only the Constitution and all the Amendments, but good chunks of the Federalist Papers as well.

Yes, there was debate over the necessity of the 9th Amendment, and guess what? It was adopted. All sides did NOT agree that there was no need for a Bill of Rights. The Anti-Federalists did in fact (and correctly, IMO) fear that a government made up of people like 37th WOULD act to restrict fundamental rights if there were NOT explicit protection for such freedoms in the nation's governing document (enforced by an independent judiciary). Many of the votes to approve the Constitution were explicitly conditioned on the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

If there was no Bill of Rights, what legal protection would the freedoms of speech, assembly, religion, from unreasonable search and seizure, self-incrimination have? NONE.

"The problem is that there IS no such thing as inalienable rights. If there were, there would have been no need for the Bill of Rights. But the Founding Fathers realized that without explicit guarantees of rights to free speech, religion, and privacy, among others, provided for in the Bill of Rights (as well as the 14th Amendment), a government COULD take away those rights. The right not to be illegally searched exists only because of the 4th Amendment. Without that, almost any search of an individual by the police would, by definition, be legal."

No offense intended luridone, but you need to read the constitution, starting with the Preamble, then also the preamble to the Bill of Rights (yes, the bill of rights has a preamble). You'll find it's in there.

The founders were very clear that there are some rights all people are born with. The ONLY reason they wrote the Bill of Rights was to ensure that government would never try to take those rights away.

This is a common fallacy so don't feel bad. The constitution was written to limit government, not to enable it to do anything more than the enumerated powers listed in Article 1.

Posted by: daveh3 | July 20, 2010 6:26 PM
__________________________
I don't feel bad at all, because you're wrong. Not only have I read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, all the other Amendments to the Constitution, and their preambles, I took 2 courses in Constitutional Law in Law School. The founders did believe in FUNDAMENTAL freedoms that were the core of a free society, but they also recognized, as even your post actually acknowledges, that without LEGAL protections for those freedoms (to be defended by an independent judiciary), a government COULD take them away.

Don't feel bad, the law is complex, and non-lawyers frequently don't know how to do legal analysis.

I don't wonder that you want "the slate wiped clean," 37th, but that's not important. What is important is that nobody here wants to read your posts. Not even other right-wingers. Your racism is loathsome, your repetitiveness is brain-numbing, and you post long unintelligible and hysterical screeds all day. Clearing all the blocks won't make you thoughtful, nor smarter, nor more considerate.

I wish there were more like Senator Graham. The Republican Party used to be fairly diverse, with hard core righties just on the fringes. Now it seems they dominate the party, making a moderate conservative like Graham seem like a lone wolf outsider.
I remember when the GOP leadership united with the Democratic leadership in 1964 to pass the civil rights bill over a filibuster by Southern Democrats and right wing ideologues on the GOP fringe.
Legislation used to be worked out that way when centerists ran each party.
Supreme Court nominations were also approved without politically polarized votes.

I think the Democrats frankly started it with the Bork fight in the 1980's. But the GOP has certainly responded in kind.
The real crime is that even federal district judge appointments are held up when the district courts are so overwelmed with work load. District judges are needed badly and their appointments should not be held up by either side as partisan games go on.

Noacoler wrote,
"The activism is in the ignoring of the clear intent of the first fourteen words."

---

Sorry, but the constitution does not exist in a vacuum. There is enough writing extant by the framers to make clear their attitudes concerning the right to bear arms. If the Warren Court didn't tackle the issue back in the day when two Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, et al. were being gunned down, I don't think your view will prevail any time soon.

Why are there not more consistent and principled US Senators like Lindsey Graham?
As a loyal D I will gladly send him a small contribution simply b/c he behaves precisely as we should expect all US Senators/leaders of our nation,to do, with dignity. That is something which is something sorely missing in the US Senate today. I have always respected Graham even though I share very little with him politically or philosophically. My sentiments have absolutely nothing to do with his otherwise irrelevant vote for Kagan today. She will be confirmed with or without Graham's vote. What Graham said when he cast his vote was the exact same words we heard from Sen Hatch regarding George Bush's judicial nominees. The difference, one Senator is consistent and takes principled postions on all important issues of the day, the other, just another hack politician.Bob Dole, Alan Simpson, Jack Kemp, were of a different generation of US Senators that practiced civil, princicpled, politics which George Will would call stagecraft. I would put Graham in that same mold, a statesman and a gentleman something Washington certainly needs a whole lot more of. In politics Graham would be called authentic, the real thing. My question: Why are there not more like him today in Washington?

No, Brigade it would not take an Amendment, it would take an honest interpretation of the one already there. The activism is in the ignoring of the clear intent of the first fourteen words. Home defense, the shibboleth for the Cold Dead Fingers crowd, has nothing whatsoever to do with militas. The activism is in ignoring the clear intent in the words and creating a corrosive and destructive "right" where that was not intended.

And give the murder rate in this county and its solid bond to firearms, the political fetishism around guns, their resulting availability to the unstable and the insane, I think this activism is the worst ever. And were it not for the open-endedness of a Constitutional Convention, I would favor repeal, and a lot of cold dead fingers, and good riddance.

Noacoler wrote,
"At that time there was no standing army as there is now and defense consisted of the armed citizens so it's small wonder that those not committed to defense wou;dn't be regarded as making the bar."

---

Immaterial. It would take a constitutional ammendment to walk this back. A few activist judges won't do.

Yes Brigade, I have a 40 IQ, that's my problem. I wonder if you're capable of debating without going into that junk? I doubt it.

At that time there was no standing army as there is now and defense consisted of the armed citizens so it's small wonder that those not committed to defense wou;dn't be regarded as making the bar.

See if you can justify the leading fourteen words, the very grammar of the sentence mangled to get them prominentkly first, and why you are so confident they should be ignored, and see if you can answer without ther "40 IQ" and "remedial course" and "I demolish your arguements," because that crap is of no interest to me or anyone else.

Noacoler wrote,
"wrong ideas like the Second Amendment being interpreted by latter-day fanatics as a right to individual gun ownership despite the clear intend of the first fourteen words."

---

And you're the one with a high IQ? LOL. Some lefties use this argument against the second amendment, but even they don't really believe it. The founding fathers left plenty of written documentation about their attitudes toward individual gun ownership. In some cases, men weren't even considered citizens unless they owned firearms. No one with an IQ above 40 accepts your interpretation. Take a remedial course.

"Do what you think is right and let the law catch up," said the late Thurgood Marshall when asked for his judicial philosophy.

Ironically, his judicial philosophy was no different than that of Roy Bean or Bull Connor; they just had different ideas of what was "right." Not the sort of philosophy you look for in a Supreme Court justice. Marshall was certainly an icon in the struggle for civil rights, and he may have been a nice man---I wasn't personally acquainted with him; but as a Supreme Court justice, he left a lot to be desired.

WHat "tradition" of marriage are your referring to? THe one where a man and a woman meet, fall in love and get married (and don;t divorce) is long gone. In fact, that pathway to marriage is a new road.

Through human history, up to say, 1840, almost ALL marriages of middle class people were arranged, and were hardly voluntary. Once could almost BEVER marry the person of their true love... unless that person was of the same religion, ethnicity, financial background, had enough money to pay off the wife's dad, and acceptable to the father of the bride. The female had almost NO Say in teh marriage. IF the ,ale wanted her, he asked for her "hand" from the father, who gave it or not based on the fitness of the male (see above). There was rarely true love involved in the equation!

Even today, over most of the world, there are arranged marriages, where the bride and groom meet on their wedding day (they see this as an improvement over our tradition of marring for love, since the love line is at its highest on teh wedding day in the West, and fades in our culture as time goes on (hence out high divorce rates) but in Eastern cultures, it is at its lowest and only grows from the date of marriage in those other cultures.)

In fact, in the modern western world we REDEFINED the definition of marriage from that pre 19th century one (from beginning of human history to 19th century) to a more modern one to suit our cultural needs.

Thus, what this country and countries around the world are doing is continuing to evolve and change the definition of marriage to meet the needs of an ever-evolving society. You can come along for the ride and "evolve" with us, or stay behind in a world that only exists in your memories. Oh yes, marriage will change, whether you like it, agree with it, or not.

You can stand there stomping your feet wishing for arranged marriages and doweries, like luddites of your ilk did so in Victorian times, or become aware, informed, and open-minded, and accepting of a culture and world that is constantly changing.

First of all, the rights you claim as "inalienable" are actually not rights, but privileges. If the government can take away those "inalienable" rights from us, they are not rights but privileges.

For example, ask the Asian-Americans during WWII if their inalienable rights to "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" were taken away from them by the government. remember those little things we call "Relocation" (really concentration) Camps as we took American citizens from their homes and relocated them into forced camps (so much for liberty and pursuit of happiness!).

Ohyeah, how about explaining these "inalienable rights" to American Indians? They would laugh in your face! And how about the slaves we had for 200 years in America.. how about THEIR "inalienable rights" to life and liberty?

There are no such things as "inalienable" rights. The government can take away anyone's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness if it deems fit. If the government can take it away, it is NOT A RIGHT, needless to say, inalienable. How laughable your points are.

Also, the US Constitution was an EXPANSION (huge expansion!) of government! HAve you ever read the Articles of Confederation (the law of the land before the Constitution)? The Convention greatly expanded the role and powers of the Federal Government, in order to save the Union and balance the powers of the states with the desire to have a centralized government. Before the Constitution, the states had ALL of the power and there was very little power given to the central federal government. The next time I hear a conservative call the COnstitution a LIMIT on government, I will cry laughing. It is the biggest EXPANSION of the Federal government and centralized powers just short of a dictatorship. There was no President or congress or supreme court under the Articles. Get a clue about your history!

THe US CONSTITUTION is the greatest LIBERAL, GOVERNMENT-EXPANDING, PRESIDENT-CREATING, POWER-CONSOLIDTING document of ALL TIME! (The conservatives in the 1780s wanted the status quo, keep the AOC. The radical liberals wanted a new document and thus the COnstitution was made!! The COnservatives of today would NEVER have voted to scrap the document of laws called the AOC in favor for a new constitution. It took RADICAL GUTS to do so.. and our LIBERAL founding fathers did so! AMEN!

In mid-2004, how many people had their money on freshman Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic Presidential candidate and in 2008, AND (does anyone even know what her job was then?) Sarah Palin as the Republicans' Vice Presidential candidate?

[crickets]

Re speculating on primary challengers to South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham in 2014: talk about counting one's chickens before they hatch. Why, by then Mark Sanford could be an Argentinian citizen living there with his "soul-mate"!

Yes and the founders were infallible people who foresaw everything that was ever going to happen afterward. That's why the Constitution had to be amended almost immediately and why we had to have a Civil War to settle a few loose ends. And that's why we have such clearly corrosive and wrong ideas like the Second Amendment being interpreted by latter-day fanatics as a right to individual gun ownership despite the clear intend of the first fourteen words.

"The problem is that there IS no such thing as inalienable rights. If there were, there would have been no need for the Bill of Rights. But the Founding Fathers realized that without explicit guarantees of rights to free speech, religion, and privacy, among others, provided for in the Bill of Rights (as well as the 14th Amendment), a government COULD take away those rights. The right not to be illegally searched exists only because of the 4th Amendment. Without that, almost any search of an individual by the police would, by definition, be legal."

----------------------------------------

No offense intended luridone, but you need to read the constitution, starting with the Preamble. Then read the Federalist papers which were written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.

The founders were very clear that there are some rights all people are born with. The ONLY reason they wrote the Bill of Rights was to ensure that government would never try to take those rights away.

This is a common fallacy so don't feel bad. The constitution was written to limit government, not to enable it to do anything more than the enumerated powers listed in Article 1.

"The problem is that there IS no such thing as inalienable rights. If there were, there would have been no need for the Bill of Rights. But the Founding Fathers realized that without explicit guarantees of rights to free speech, religion, and privacy, among others, provided for in the Bill of Rights (as well as the 14th Amendment), a government COULD take away those rights. The right not to be illegally searched exists only because of the 4th Amendment. Without that, almost any search of an individual by the police would, by definition, be legal."

No offense intended luridone, but you need to read the constitution, starting with the Preamble, then also the preamble to the Bill of Rights (yes, the bill of rights has a preamble). You'll find it's in there.

The founders were very clear that there are some rights all people are born with. The ONLY reason they wrote the Bill of Rights was to ensure that government would never try to take those rights away.

This is a common fallacy so don't feel bad. The constitution was written to limit government, not to enable it to do anything more than the enumerated powers listed in Article 1.

37th, I'm sorry if I've been unclear. Let me try to be as precise as I can manage.

I regard you tea party people, teabaggers for short, as contemptible ignorant idiots. Is that clear enough or is there some way I can make it clearer?

You guys haven't read the Constitution .. most of you would be challenged to read the entirety of a gum wrapper. Your little movement is of the bowels only, and it little more than a racist reaction to having a black president. You uh people are incoherent and angry.

That said, I treasure you as a political force, albeit not in the way you intend. You are accelerating the death of the Republican Party by intimidating it into nominating unelectable idiots and for that you have my heartfelt thanks.

I think I speak for most when I say that all the thinking people on this blog are not going to wait for you to be banned once and for all.

We can beat the rush and start ignoring you now.

Only the truly bored respond to your itchiness. you have been the primary cause of the decline of this blog and your behavior has encouraged other misfits to act accordingly. you will get no more attention from me.

Barryd, your argument is nonsensical, like pretty much all libertarian arguments.

To say we need to be free to fail translates in application to "we must not allow ourselves to learn from mistakes."

You mention smoking. We know now without doubt that cigarettes are lethal when used as directed, unlike for example inhaling paint thinner, which isn't what the instructions advise. To market an addictive lethal product under the auspices of "free to fail" is a rationale for enslavement.

And you libertarians seem to be pretty big on the freedom to enslave, which is one reason, among many, you should be regarded as a psychopathological phenomenon and not a political one.

Dead, again you presuppose my position - I think on the limited issue of unemployment the Repubs were right - the money should have come from the stimulous money.

and I most assuredly believe in the right to fail - but it is not so simple - it must be balanced with what it will cost us in the long run if we allow someone to fail.

Further, i am at my limits with the state governments and local governments looking for federal handouts - a local politico called it free money - I noted it is only free for us not our great grand children - also the locals actually pay with federal tax dollars

so please do not presuppose my posistions - but again it is about a balancing act - if it will cost less on the front end than teh back end, then we need to think about it before we say no.

Bobby, I don't think you will get much of an argument on delgating most authority to the states on most measures from me or any other libertarian. I also don't personally have a stake in the abortion or marriage debate.

however, I am curious as to where you would draw the line for state aid. I think most people would assist the helpless, but the jobless? Particularly in an environment where the money is borrowed? If you are interested in fiscal sanity, how can you support modern Democrats at all?

do you advocate taking away the choice to fail - not buying insurance, not wearing a helmet, not eating properly, smoking, drinking, tannning, saving, etc? Where does the line come in? Modern liberals seem to have no notion of intrusion into individual choice at all.

We must be free to fail, as we have done with the last choice of presidents and congress. That is how we learn not to do it again, if we survive.

Guys, please don't take up 37th on the "sexual slur" crap. Hardly anyone outside the subscriber base of Screw Magazine knows the alternate meaning of "teabagger," and the claim that people who refer to these numbskulls by the same dumb name they use to refer to themselves represents a sexual slur is simply absurd.

Back in the 70s there were radical feminists who made the same accusation about the phrase "rule of thumb." Google its provenance and see if you see the similarity.

We're told that this mentally deficient pest will be gone soon. I'm not holding my breath.

Dead, people like you presuppose the othersides position and you always look bad - you can see you are going no where with me on the abortion issue.

In today's world, and this goes with Order Liberty - even in the case of rape a woman can get to a doctor in 72 hours and take a pill - this is a reasonable compromise.

Again facts matter, but never to the Right - in Texas our constitutional mandates a public education. this is what the people of Texas decided on - are we wrong because you do not like it?

I have never said the haves should take care of the have nots - but you know what when you refuse to help a learning disabled child you are basically helping him/her become a ward of teh state - you can invest in children on the front end or pay for it on the back end with prisons - it is call policy based in fiscal sanity

37th, and where in original intent does it say marriage is between a man and a women- it was not even until the 19th century that the states even got involved in the issue and then it was over divorce and men abandoning women and their children.

So why is Blackstone right on the issue of self defense and wrong on the issue of marriage - his words are black and white.

Why is this foreigner right on self defense, but is wrong for the court to look to foreign law - which is Blackstone.

The states have no right over abortion - period - it may surprise you, but abortion is murder unless to protect the life of the mother - the government (federal government) has long regulated murder. The federal government has every right to ban abortion other than when the life of the mother is at issue.

If you knew anything about the true left you would know we view abortion as murder - but you have no interest in facts

Bobby - are you saying it is the duty of a civilized and just society to protect those who are incapable of protecting themselves? I never saw this in american constitution, although the church has quite a bit to say about this.

how far will you take this line? Does it include health care, food, shelter, TV, transportation, education..... It seems the list in modern times could be endless. Just what are the duties of the citizen in return? Try?

How far in the other direction would you take it? does an infant have all the same rights or even more than a functioning adult? How about an infant in it's ninth month preborn? Eigth month? Seventh?....

Senator Graham is merely stating the obvious. President Obama won the election and so his nominees for the Supreme Court will most likely be liberal just as President Bush elected conservatives to the bench. Senator Graham has shown great political courage for doing the right thing and I, from the loyal opposition party, do admire him for his honesty and integrity.

37th inasmuch as I got a perfect score on the multistate part of the bar for constituional law, and the bar review company gave me my money back after I made numerous corrections to their manuals, you are right I have no idea what I am talking about - because rather than spew my ignorance I post actual likes such as Blackstone to support my position.

Actually correct on my previous post - it should have read -

"My line would be, when the weapon endangers society more than it protects the individual, then we as individuals have no right to that weapon. Conceptually, this is the same as banning ownership of weapons by mentally ill people.

While I would oppose Bork today such as I opposed him then, he had it right on the issue of the Penumbra - he reasoned that you look at an established right - marriage for example which the Court has found to be fundamental. The penumbra according to Bork would include any activity which if denied would in effect restrict marriage. The problem is if you heard Bork carefully he had no respect for his own argument. How can you have the right to marriage but no right to privacy in the bedroom? Bork never reconciled his hypocrisy on the issue and as they say the rest is history.

The penumbra applies equally to rights and governance. We live in a nation of “Ordered Liberty.” Not chaos - the concept of liberty grows with knowledge as so does the penumbra. We can only move forward as a nation if we accept this idea. But it must be done in an orderly way. Our Founding Fathers understood this. Our greatest strength is the ability of the states to experiment with policy. Within the juridical methodology used by the Supreme Court this has been the guiding light.

Same gender marriage is a formality because the states have shown the world does not end when same genders can marry. The world has also shown this. This is how ‘Ordered Liberty’ works. It is a process, without chaos.

On the right to self defense - where does that right end - it ends when it crosses some mythical line which will be decided by 5 justices. Does the right to self defense include my right to own a tank to defend my home against an oppressive government? Does it end with ownership of a nuclear weapon? I live on the border with Mexico - what weapons should I be allowed to own to defend my home? Answer only those which do not cross that mythical line.

Until the right can define the mythical line, and explain why owning a nuclear weapon is not incident to self defense, they are playing a game. My line would be, when the weapon endangers society more than it protects society, then we as individuals have not right to that weapon. Conceptually, this is the same as banning ownership of weapons by mentally ill people.

"As usual, the animals are out and smelling blood. The senator made a very wise decision that should shine a light on common sense for the future for both parties, and what does he get? The animals calling for him. "

political purity seems to be a big deal for both parties right now although at some level the democratic party seems to be doing a slightly better job of controlling it. Look at Lieberman and the blue dogs now and the folks calling for their heads. I still think that until the republican party gets this garbage under control they will stay a minority party.

"As usual, the animals are out and smelling blood. The senator made a very wise decision that should shine a light on common sense for the future for both parties, and what does he get? The animals calling for him. "

political purity seems to be a big deal for both parties right now although at some level the democratic party seems to be doing a slightly better job of controlling it. Look at Lieberman and the blue dogs now and the folks calling for their heads. I still think that until the republican party gets this garbage under control they will stay a minority party.

It's all quite simple. The far right, who arrogantly think they control the GOP, are willing to vote no to ANYTHING that Dems and moderate, even conservative GOP members support. Blinded by their Beck/Teabag/Rush/FOX spite and paranoid visions of a "lost America", they are willing to do nothing less than bloodlet their party, their country in their angry, misguided zeal. I wonder where all of these people were the last 8 years of unregulated mayhem in the financial sector, secret intelligence gathering, torture, lies, corruption. I guess THAT was the America they miss so dearly.

Madison as history teaches us was right - the right has subverted the constitution by claiming teh government can regulate everything unless teh constitution says otherwise - wrong
The government has limited powers which do not include banning self defense or with whom I choose to bed down with or marry.

Bobby Wc

Are you really claiming it is the right that wants to regulate everything? that seems to be contrary to most conventional wisdom. I admit the right may want to regulate private morality but it is the left that wants to regulate most everything else.

Yet the government regulates private morality all the time - murder, theft, arson, etc. there is nothing instinctively improper about this.

While we are at it. Where does it say that the government will regulate health care, retirement, autos, student loans, banking, food, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. this is the duty of the individual states?

I suspect you will find a penumbra of a shadow of an enigma wrapped in the commerce clause?

How sad that a singular act of political independence and reasonableness in this teabag-driven era of hate, rage and second amendment remedies becomes an excuse for the political media to speculate on a long-serving members' political obituary. Graham likely will need to keep a close eye on Charlie Crist (!) as this all plays out.
Posted by: ImaDem
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And last singular act of political independence and reasonableness in this Dbagger-driven era of hate, rage and government dependence on the Left was ?

Im glad you agree with have a Constitution which limits the powers of the Federal Government - into such things like health care.

I never made a statement about privacy here - or anywhere else.

However, this is an issue of dispute - and perhaps it would be better to allow the States to decide such issues.

At some point, with about two hundred years of Constitutional debate - we have to be coming to some conclusions about what provisions actually mean - if the States traditionally made laws concerning abortion under the powers traditionally recognized, that should remain.

Such as health care legislation - doctors' licenses and health care regulation has traditionally been under the powers of the States - where does it allow the Federal government to regulate that ?

At some point "interstate commerce" stops - it does not include everything - which is the point you just made.

Perhaps, after industrialization, advances in transportation and the rapid changes of our economy in that time, it made sense to redefine "interstate commerce" in the period from the 1880s - 1930s. However that justification is long gone.

I would caution you to project the opinions of others - it is unseemly and not appropriate.

How sad that a singular act of political independence and reasonableness in this teabag-driven era of hate, rage and second amendment remedies becomes an excuse for the political media to speculate on a long-serving members' political obituary. Graham likely will need to keep a close eye on Charlie Crist (!) as this all plays out.

As usual, the animals are out and smelling blood. The senator made a very wise decision that should shine a light on common sense for the future for both parties, and what does he get? The animals calling for him. How do you people look at yourselves in the mirror and raise families without shame? Disgusting. Well done, senator. Courage is in short supply. If I lived in your state, you'd have my vote.

Wow, it's nice to see an actual adult in the Senate. Senator Graham has earned my respect.
The obstructionist who hate America and want to see it fail, will be throwing 2-yr old type tantrums over this.

As usual, the animals are out and smelling blood. The senator made a very wise decision that should shine a light on common sense for the future for both parties, and what does he get? The animals calling for him. How do you people look at yourselves in the mirror and raise families without shame? Disgusting. Well done, senator. Courage is in short supply. If I lived in your state, you'd have my vote.

To ingnore the philosophical foundations underlying the declaration and the constitution is simply cherry picking for some rhetorical advantage.

this is the act of a lawyer, not a philosopher.

Our FOunders, irrelevant as they are today, strongly beleived in individual rights as espoused in the Bible and in the thinking of the Cartesian tradition.

they would have considered it silly to debate whether God thought man loved liberty and whether the government deserved to impinge on this in some sort of socialist fashion.

In fact, the first tax collection had to be enforced at gunpoint during the whiskey rebellion. this was intended to pay for the War ONLY. there simply was no other reason to ever collect taxes.

Unfortunately, the government grows out of control with no method for putting on the brakes. this has occured in crisis proportion lately.

It goes without saying that this mechanism severly impinges on all of our liberty. the bare bones government that pays the military, protects the border and prosecutes fraud was all that we needed and if we ever wise up, all we need now.

Wow, it's nice to see an actual adult in the Senate. Senator Graham has earned my respect.
The obstructionist who hate America and want to see it fail, will be thowing some good 2-yr old type tantrums over this.

Luridone, actually you are wrong and the clear history of the 9th Amendment makes known you are wrong - but I never expect anyone to really know this history - so I am not trying to be difficult.

the debate over the 9th was about its necessity - all sides agreed that since the constitution clearly defined the limited powers of the government then there was no need for the Bill of Rights - nothing in the constitution took away our inalienable rights.

Madison reasoned that people like 37th would come along and make stupid pronouncements like "where in the constitution does it say you have a right to privacy?" That is not the question - the question is "where in the constitution does it empower the government to regulate our bodies, bedrooms etc.?"

Madison as history teaches us was right - the right has subverted the constitution by claiming teh government can regulate everything unless teh constitution says otherwise - wrong
The government has limited powers which do not include banning self defense or with whom I choose to bed down with or marry.

Dave_B: "Because if she has a remotely fair voting record (compared to Obama's last pick) Graham would be stronger as a result of having voted for her."

Only in a world in which the extremists cared about her actual positions. I'm afraid the real strike against her is that she was nominated by a Democratic, and worse, by a popular one. They'd claim Pat Buchanan was a liberal if Obama nominated him.

I admire Graham's position. Kagan is qualified to be a USSC justice. So was Robert Bork. 41 prior justices of the Supreme Court had no judicial experience before being nominated. She is clearly an intelligent, highly educated, articulate, lawyer. The fact that you don't agree with her politics (and I don't) doesn't mean she is not qualified. We would be a whole lot better off if Graham's position had been followed by both parties during the last several decades. The witch hunts that have occurred on both sides, on prior nominations have done incalculable damage to the Court and to our political system generally. We should be trying to find candidates on both sides that are willing to govern from the middle. That is the only place you can govern successfully from. The independent's disgust with the system is because the Dem's and Rep's systems are designed to insure that the people who can get the nomination are, in general, unsuited to the necessity of reaching across the aisle to reach the types of accommodations necessary to govern. So we just have to keep tossing people out every 1 or 2 cycles until someone finally learns something (hah!) Only the blatant gerrymandering keeps a lot of people in their positions. Don't know why I bothered with this. Never going to convince any of the diehards on either side.

If your comment were true, this nation would not be independent from England.

So it DOES have some legal weight, right ?

The inalienable rights are also good law - they are in the "liberty" of the 5th and 14th Amendments.

And your sexual slurs about the Tea Party are uncivil, and unappreciated - it makes your comment hostile - and therefore against the rules.

.

Posted by: YouCanPostThis | July 20, 2010 4:00 PM
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The Declaration of Independence is not what freed this country from England - it was the war that followed. If the English had won, regardless of the Declaration, we would not be independent (or at least it would have happened much later). Furthermore, it played no role in the establishment of our Federal government. Before the Constitution, there were the Articles of Confederation, which failed miserably. But in neither instance of establishing a government for the United States did the Declaration play ANY role. Hence, it has NO legal weight.

Once again, if "liberty" were an inalienable right, there would have been no need to include it in the 5th and 14th Amendments. But, the Founding Fathers, and the drafters of the 14th Amendment, knew that without explicit protection in the supreme law of the land, that right was also subject to the whim of the government.

As for the tea-baggers - that is what they call themselves. How is it uncivil and hostile of me to call them what they call themselves?

Really? Teabaggers are willing to go to nuclear war over a milquetoast, middle-of-the-road Supreme Court nominee.

If Republicans are to be slaughtered by their own party for the sin of occasionally working with Democrats, then the US Senate will quickly become the cog that breaks our government. How can the US remain governable if our legislature is crippled by extremists?

it amazes me how even when you write you fail to see just how poorly educated you really are.

So being a lesbian means you are not qualified - such a moronic statement equates to an admission of ignorance.

Where do you think precedent comes from? Why should 9 people who are not answerable to the American people get to decide our rights?

There was no precedent other than the Kings Bench for the first Supreme Court convened. this meant they looked to foreign law - you moron. Are we to be guided by the Kings Bench?

Blackstone, who Grassely referenced to justify his argument as to the right to self defense, was a foreigner - not an American. But yet when it serves Grassley he denounces the Court for looking at foreign law.

here is what Blackstone said about the right to marriage - this was the law at the time the Constitution was written (original intent - one might say)

"I. OUR law considers marriage in no other light than as a civil contract. The Holiness of the matrimonial state is left entirely to the ecclesiastical law: the temporal courts not having jurisdiction to consider unlawful marriages as a sin, but merely as a civil inconvenience."

So why now is Blackstone wrong? Answer it does not serve the anti-liberty agenda of teh radical right nut jobs who hate everything our country stands for - and that means you 37th aka any number of pen names

Declaration of Independence, (my previous post) deals with our Independence, of course, from British control.

Article IV has -Unreasonable Searches and seizures prohibited. No warrant to issue but on oath or affirmation.

--USA Patriot Act violates IV.
--AZ new law might just violate it too.

...."THe right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause; supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized...."

The Bill of Right spells out some of these rights - but all those rights do not have to be spelled out in order for us to have them.

Hence - the definitions of "life, liberty and property" - the definition of "liberty" gets filled out case-by-case.

Those words are applied to the States as well through the 14th Amendment.

So, Kagan is giving us some liberal garbage - however if she is trying to break new ground here it will never work -

.

Posted by: YouCanPostThis | July 20, 2010 3:36 PM
__________________________________
You're confusing the Declaration of Independence, a non-legal document, with the Constitution, which is the legal basis of our system of government. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" (not property) are not rights provided for anywhere in the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. They're not applied to the States through the 14th Amendment, either.

All of you right-wing kooks purport to revere the Founding Fathers, yet refuse to realize that THEY knew that without the Bill of Rights, the freedoms guaranteed therein were NOT inalienable and would be at the mercy of the government. Isn't that your entire argument around the 2d Amendment (while you ignore the opening phrase regarding "a well-regulated militia")? Isn't that the whole argument over the right to religious expression? The whole reason for the 3d and 4th Amendments was because the British authorities were able to enter people's homes at their whim.

Inalienable rights pretty much comes down to the definition of "liberty" in the fifth and 14th Amendments

The Courts get to decide what it means - however they are bound by precedent.

The earlier poster who stated that there are 8000 cases and the Justices decide which cases are taken - that is an excellent point -

However the Justices are limited in what they can do - there must be a case - the question - or in this case any potential extension of "inalienable rights" really has to be consistent with the precendent body of cases.

So there are important limitations - Kagan isn't going to show up this fall and start re-writing things.

A more important issue is the STRAIGHT LYING which might be going on - for instance Sotomeyer said she would vote one way on gun rights - and then voted the opposite.

So there appears to be deception going on - and that is just wrong.

Obama could have made a better choice - this process has gotten ridiculous - the country needs people who are further outside the box.

And the LESBIAN question never got answered - and it appears to be just another attempt at deception.

Even if Eliot Spitzer says he dated Kagan - before all those hookers - somehow that doesn't exactly say much in favor of either of them, does it ?

Sort of makes sense if Kagan realized she was a lesbian during the time she was dating Eliot Spitzer, right ?

Graham has 3 good years to prepare for that primary fight in 2014. I personally think Gov. Sanford will be a primary opponent of Graham in 2014, and a serious primary challenger he will be. Sanford is extremely popular in conservative circles and would have the immediate backing of the Club for Growth. I'm certain he has damaged his image in socially conservative circles, but could beat out Graham on fiscal issues. Dawson sort of has a reputation as a racist, which could go over well in SC. Another potential opponent could be US Rep. Tim Scott, as he's very conservative and beloved by the Club for Growth. He also beat out Paul Thurmond for the 1st district nomination, not an easy task. He won on fiscal issues, primarily. All of that being said, Graham will have 3 good years before he must face any of this.

Posted by: Dead_and_Barryd
_______________________________
Quoting from the Declaration of Independence is completely irrelevant. The Declaration, stirring as it is, doesn't establish ANY inalienable rights - it has NO legal weight whatsoever.

Of course, you also forgot (or maybe chose to ignore) the following phrase "All men are created equal."

WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's GOD entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

Becasue the right in this country seems to think they only exist on their approval.

Grassley was right during the hearings when he noted the right to self defense is an inalienable rights. this is pretty well documents in Blackstone. But then true to form for people lie Grassely he tried to get kagan to agree marriage is a states issue. it is not - Blackstone was very clear it is a contract over which the state much accept regarless of its inconvenience.

I will be guided that that foreigner - Blackstone guiding us in our rights any day before I allow some self serving right winger decide what is and is not an inalienable right.

Grassely is a phony as are all members of the radical right - note I do not say conservative - there is no relationship between the two.

Gee WaPo, we're still waiting for that story on the Justice Department's handling of the Black Panther voter intimidation case. What gives? Oh yeah, you might have to bang on someone in the Oboob administration and of course you aren't going to do that, are you?

In other words, Graham exhibits a dangerous tendency (as viewed by the conservative-in-name-only hoard) to think for himself instead of marching in lock step with the fascist-lite movement the rest of the Republican Party has willingly embraced.

Posted by: halifax1
------------------------------------------
He not thinking for himself. Barry, Harry and Nan do the thinking for US now. That's why there is no longer a need for a constitution, rules, or laws.

Graham is a RINO -- Republican In Name Only. His Democrat opponent in 2008 was a terrific conservative, so of course the DNC wouldn't lift a finger to help him. The D's would rather have a RINO than a serious non-leftist D any day.

Repossession of homes proceeds at a record pace. The Federal Reserve projects only weaker growth and higher unemployment. The sheepish Europeans cool their schoolgirl crush on Barack Obama. Ditto the Muslims, who had expected Mr. Obama to lead wholesale conversions to Islam, with conversion of St. Patrick's and National cathedrals to mosques soon to follow. The Pentagon warns that it can't pay its bills. The war in Afghanistan, no longer on George W.'s watch, looks headed toward Kaput City. Everybody is as angry as ever about the health care reform, the wasteful and ineffective stimulus (and Son of Stimulus) and Al Gore's scheme to require that naughty old sun to change its spots. Bill Clinton is called back to the White House and told to arrive with a big bottle of his magic "feeling your pain" pills.

No one (unless you count Joke Biden) doubts that Obama's incompetence, anti-Americanism, and left-wing extremism will cost the Dems heavy losses in Congress this fall. As for 2012:

There's serious talk of a presidential primary challenge to Barack Obama by Hillary Clinton. The last time a Democratic challenger tried this, Teddy Kennedy took on Jimmy Carter. … Together they gave us Ronald Reagan. …

Mr. Obama's dilemma is that he can't change the why and wherefore of his fall from voter grace. The coalition he put together two years ago would fall apart if he tried. The remnants of that coalition — the feminists, the naifs in the faculty lounges, the blacks — want him to be just as they imagined he was. His misfortune is that almost nobody else does

Remember when Obamunists were trying to pass off their dollar store messiah as the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln? It was Honest Abe who said:

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

By now the Manchurian Moonbat and his teleprompter programmers are done fooling anyone.

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.”

In other words, Graham exhibits a dangerous tendency (as viewed by the conservative-in-name-only hoard) to think for himself instead of marching in lock step with the fascist-lite movement the rest of the Republican Party has willingly embraced.

I admire the man for voting his conscience. I look back fondly on a time when we had Senators such as Everett Dirksen and Stuart Symington, both strong partisans for different parties. They were not so bound by their partisanship that they couldn't sometimes work together or vote contrary to the party line.

The fact that soon there will no longer be a white majority is a matter of demographics, not wishful thinking. That is why rant about this being a white Christian nation on a previous thread revealed more than you probably wanted. I have no desire to be in the majority or the minority. I want to raise my family, do my job and hope the country does not go down the drain. The mud-slinging that passes for political discourse does not give one much cause for hope.
Posted by: trep1
----------------------------------------
Actually it is only secondarily a matter of demographics. Primarily it is a matter of decades of government policy, one that rewarded and continues to reward children having children without family structure or means. It has created lifetime government dependency, poverty, crime, and hopelessness. On the positive side it has created the desired voter “demographic” for the D’s to roll out every 4 years. These policies alone are heading the US into financial collapse without even considering the myriad of other financial problems we are facing.

“Added Quinn: "He's a thinking person's conservative. I expect him to do well among voters with IQ's in triple digits."

POINT MADE

“She evaded and did not answer the question. She indicated she did not believe in such rights.”

How do you evade and not answer and answer at the same time, riddle me that daveh3?

Now to be fair, all of them are judicial activists using the Court as there personal little fiefdom to do as they please and make policy.

Justice Breyer of recent verified the numbers - some 8000 Americans will file appeals to the US Supreme Court every year - on average the Court will hear only 80 cases. You are delusional if you think 7920 of those cases do not have reversible error. What cases get heard are based 100% on 4 Justices having an interest in promoting a political result. Kagan is a qualified as any of the other currently sitting judicial activists who have nothing but contempt for our Constitution and our rights.

How anyone here can state Kagan is qualified is beyond me and I'm not even much of a conservative.

Forget her lack of experience or her position on gays in the military or her views on abortion. I don't care about any of these, nor do I view these as disqualifiers.

HOWEVER, she was asked directly if she believed in the concept of inalienable rights, rights which we are all born with and cannot be granted or taken by government.

She evaded and did not answer the question. She indicated she did not believe in such rights.

People, I don't care what political persuasion you consider yourself, without the concept of inalienable rights, we might as well live in a dictatorship. Would you give up your right to free speech or freedom of religion? How about your right to privacy or right to not be illegally searched?

Are you people aout of your minds? Even Sotomayor and Ginsburg accept inalienable rights!

Posted by: daveh3 | July 20, 2010 2:16 PM
__________________________________
The problem is that there IS no such thing as inalienable rights. If there were, there would have been no need for the Bill of Rights. But the Founding Fathers realized that without explicit guarantees of rights to free speech, religion, and privacy, among others, provided for in the Bill of Rights (as well as the 14th Amendment), a government COULD take away those rights. The right not to be illegally searched exists only because of the 4th Amendment. Without that, almost any search of an individual by the police would, by definition, be legal.

On a different topic, I think the GOP has really overreached with this blocking of unemployment. They probably had a winner with their antics with health care. Trying to block FinReg might hurt them, but not a lot. Unemployment might really screw them over. Now you have multiple Republicans claiming that these benefits result in people not trying to look for work. With unemployment the way it is right now, people are hurting for the benefits.

What the Dems need to do is make sure exactly who is fighting for these benefits and who wants to block them.

Posted by: DDAWD
------------------------------------------
They asked that stimulus leftovers be used and dared to ask about the "Pay As You Go" president. Conservatives need to make sure exactly WHO broke another promise (pay as you go) and WHO is, AGAIN, adding to to the debt, and WHO is the lying, inter-generational thief.

The fact that soon there will no longer be a white majority is a matter of demographics, not wishful thinking. That is why rant about this being a white Christian nation on a previous thread revealed more than you probably wanted. I have no desire to be in the majority or the minority. I want to raise my family, do my job and hope the country does not go down the drain. The mud-slinging that passes for political discourse does not give one much cause for hope.

On a different topic, I think the GOP has really overreached with this blocking of unemployment. They probably had a winner with their antics with health care. Trying to block FinReg might hurt them, but not a lot. Unemployment might really screw them over. Now you have multiple Republicans claiming that these benefits result in people not trying to look for work. With unemployment the way it is right now, people are hurting for the benefits.

What the Dems need to do is make sure exactly who is fighting for these benefits and who wants to block them.

Posted by: DDAWD
------------------------------------------
They ask that stimulus leftovers be used and dared to ask about the "Pay As You Go" president. Conservatives need to make sure exactly who broke another promise 9pay as you go) and who is, AGAIN, adding to to the debt, and who is the lying, inter-generational thief.

A lot will depend on whether or not the Tea Pary movement sustains itself and much of that will depend on how their candidates do in the next two election cycles. If Rand Paul, Sharon Angle, and a few others (outside of Utah, where a TP victory in the Senate race is pretty much a dead certainty at this point) manage to win seats in Congress, then the movement will pick up steam and Jim DeMint will eventually end up as the Republican Senate leader.

If the TP movement peters out by 2014, Republicans are struggling electorally, and the right wing collapses under its own dogma, Graham may be well-positioned to lead what's left of them back towards the center.

But at the moment, there are probably people jockeying for position in the background to challenge Graham in the 2014 primary, and I can explain why they think they can take him down by repeating one name: Bob Bennett.

Like Bennett, Graham votes with Republicans 96% of the time. But apparently that's not enough for some people.

Well - is that Eugene's wish ? Does he WANT the whites to be in a minority ???

This question goes far to explaining attitudes - and whether there is racism afoot.

Posted by: YouCanPostThis
----------------------------------------
The greatest (secret) desire of a white liberal is to be a minority and, finally, assuage their guilt and the guilt of the D party for their historical pro-slavery, jim crowe, and kkk associations.

On a different topic, I think the GOP has really overreached with this blocking of unemployment. They probably had a winner with their antics with health care. Trying to block FinReg might hurt them, but not a lot. Unemployment might really screw them over. Now you have multiple Republicans claiming that these benefits result in people not trying to look for work. With unemployment the way it is right now, people are hurting for the benefits.

What the Dems need to do is make sure exactly who is fighting for these benefits and who wants to block them.

How anyone here can state Kagan is qualified is beyond me and I'm not even much of a conservative.

Forget her lack of experience or her position on gays in the military or her views on abortion. I don't care about any of these, nor do I view these as disqualifiers.

HOWEVER, she was asked directly if she believed in the concept of inalienable rights, rights which we are all born with and cannot be granted or taken by government.

She evaded and did not answer the question. She indicated she did not believe in such rights.

People, I don't care what political persuasion you consider yourself, without the concept of inalienable rights, we might as well live in a dictatorship. Would you give up your right to free speech or freedom of religion? How about your right to privacy or right to not be illegally searched?

Are you people aout of your minds? Even Sotomayor and Ginsburg accept inalienable rights!

LG should be Sen. Min. Ldr or Sen. Maj. Ldr by then, skipping right over the current leader and his associates.

And when he votes for two more Justices appointed by a D Prez he will encourage still more weeping and clothes tearing and gnashing of teeth until the similarity with a Sicilian funeral is noted by the press.

How do I know all this? I pulled it out of my ear. That is from whence all knowledge of 2014 comes in 2010. Unless it comes out of your ear, or somebody's nether region.

Graham is obviously out of place in SC politics. First of all, he has a brain. Even worse, he uses it for something besides a doorstop. However, his real fatal flaw is that he doesn't hate Obama enough to oppose everything the President proposes even if he actually believes it's good for the country.

Kagan is not qualified to sit on the bench and we do not need a communist who thinks the Constitution is a quaint old document that needs updating. Hopefully the Republicans will filibuster her to the extent they can. Graham is a rino and needs to go. He will likely flip parties in 2014 in a desperate grab at trying to stay in office like Specter and Crist. November 02 cannot get here soon enough to start clearing out the progressive/socialist/communist/statist Democratic Party.

I have a three digit IQ and I will never vote for Graham again. He is big disappointment to me. I voted for him when he first ran, but I didn't vote for him in the 2008 primary and I voted for the democrat in the general election. At least with a democrat you know what you are getting.

Dear Senator Graham. I am a lifelong liberal, progressive Democrat from New York and after spending a career in the Army and settling in Virginia I can assure you that the Repubican Party isn't my style (was going to say not my cup of tea). Still, assuming of course that you decide to run for reelection I pledge to donate to your campaign because this transplanted New Yorker and current Virginia resident realizes that we must honor courage and doing the right thing in the face of the idiots on the extremes (in both parties). Congratulations for having the courage and intellectual gravitas we seek in our elected leaders.

It's not a particularly impressive list. Not one of these people is likely to be well known in 2014 with the exception of Gov. Sanford. Obviously he can rehab his image by then, but still, you'd think there would be someone more prominent to take on Graham.

Of course, this is four years away. It's probably even odds that the tea party will cease to be relevant four months from now, much less four years.

Dear Senator Graham. I am a lifelong liberal, progressive Democrat from New York and after spending a career in the Army and settling in Virginia I can assure you that the Repubican Party isn't my style (was going to say not my cup of tea). Still, assuming of course that you decide to run for reelection I pledge to donate to your campaign because this transplanted New Yorker and current Virginia resident realizes that we must honor courage and doing the right thing in the face of the idiots on the extremes (in both parties). Congratulations for having the courage and intellectual gravitas we seek in our elected leaders.

Before I get too partisan here, I think Senator Graham is doing the right thing. Ms Kagan is obviously qualified and he knows it. Also he already said that he thinks the Tea-party will die out so frankly I don't think he is concerned one bit about a primary challenge at this point.

Now this is just too easy,
"He's a thinking person's conservative. I expect him to do well among voters with IQ's in triple digits."

Too bad those aren't the folks making decisions in GOP primaries anymore.

"Lindsey Graham's (R) announcement that he will vote in favor of Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court is likely to further incite conservatives already unhappy with him and, according to close observers of the state's politics, ensures he will face a serious primary challenge in 2014."

Point me to someone who accurately predicted this year's primary challenges to incumbents four years ago, and I'll take the above statement seriously. Until then, its a bit too early to start predicting that the 'tea' party will exist, much less be a significant voice in politics, in 2014.